Our holdings include hundreds of glass and film negatives/transparencies that we've scanned ourselves; in addition, many other photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs) in the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) They are adjusted, restored and reworked by your webmaster in accordance with his aesthetic sensibilities before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here. All of these images (including "derivative works") are protected by copyright laws of the United States and other jurisdictions and may not be sold, reproduced or otherwise used for commercial purposes without permission.

At first I was a bit surprised to see photos from the 60s and 70s but I think they're pretty cool. I guess it depends on what you think of as old. I was born in '68 so the early 70s photos are like fragments from my earliest memories. I appreciate seeing a time that I sort of remember. I still do love the 20s through 40s but I have really enjoyed seeing these 60s and 70s family photos. Now I'm not too sure how I'd feel about seeing "nostalgic" photos from the 80s and early 90s...

I'm becoming quite fond of these children- I would have been 5 when this photo was taken and the outfits look familiar to the ones seen when I was growing up.

My mother commented that when raising kids back then, their clothes were clean but if they were "play clothes," fashion wasn't the priority.

I like the dainty watches on the girls- with their hairstyles and the eyeglasses, I feel they look like they will zoom from girls to responsible moms without any stops in between. I bet they were busy watching those little brothers.

More pictures of the family, please. I'd love to know more about them- much as we all got the opportunity to meet the young military couple and their baby boy.

I totally disagree. I have been enjoying these family Kodachromes; I believe there's a place here for both black & white and color. In fact, it was a link to the Kodachrome-Pie Town series by Russell Lee that got me hooked on Shorpy. Line and sinker were quick to follow.

I see that the two youngest kids, even the baby still in diapers, are packing heat. It is what "dates" the photo since today it is difficult to find toy guns for boys, even though my kids had dozens, and not one out of four grew up to be outlaws. I bet none of these kids did, either. All the kids in my day had them, none became criminals or murderers. Who remembers WHEN and WHY it became forbidden to sell toy guns?

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.